Recycled Water Pack Wallet

Put your money where your heart is, with a clever wallet that sends a subtle message about the global impact of plastic packaging and solid waste management. Stitched together from sturdy recycled plastic water sachets, it's an opportunity to educate and inform about the consequences of widespread waste.

Finding value in seemingly valueless materials, the makers of these innovative bags pride themselves on low-energy recycling solutions for the countless drink packets discarded everywhere around Ghana. Due to its ubiquitous presence and indiscriminate disposal in the streets of Ghana, the plastic sachet is recognized regionally as a potent symbol of the solid waste problems faced by the nation. The millions of discarded plastic sachets that are collected by the Trashy Bags group are triple-washed, disinfected, then dried before being turned into durable and eye-catching bags.

100% recycled plastic drink containers

Large bill pocket with adjacent zippered pocket

Two smaller card pockets with top and side slots

Velcro closure

Folded: 4" H x 4.5" W (10.2 x 11.4 cm)

Handmade in and fairly traded from Ghana

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September 23, 2013 -
Well-made, durable. Just wish it had a few more pockets, as I have more cards I'd like to put in it.

Artisan: Trashy Bags

"Every bag that we sell is an opportunity to educate the public about their environment and their responsibility to keep it clean for the good of humanity and of the planet's ecosystems as a whole."

Due to a rising population and an infrastructure that is inadequate to handle the waste that's produced, the nation of Ghana is struggling with issues concerning solid waste management, and as a result, streets, drains, and landfills are overflowing with trash. As is the case with most places in the world, much of this trash could be recycled, but isn't due to a general lack of education, recycling resources, and individual responsibility. One man, armed with a devoted team of over 60 workers, has set out to change this. Stuart A. Gold, a British citizen living in Ghana, is the director of Trashy Bags, an innovative company devoted to creating beautiful products out of what most people would consider garbage.

The company encourages the people of Ghana to collect the millions of discarded plastic sachets and other reusable packaging and bring them to Trashy Bag's facilities, where they are paid a fee per batch of materials. This allows people who would otherwise be out of a job to earn money, acts as a form of supplemental income for others, and encourages the people of Ghana to clean up the streets. Once the plastic is received it is washed three times, disinfected, dried, sorted, and eventually sewn into bags by the 60-plus full-time employees of Trashy Bags. Each finished bag is then packaged with an educational leaflet informing the public of the dangers of littering, and encouraging them to reduce, reuse, and recycle. The effects of cleaning the streets of Ghana are vital and far reaching -- in a country where malaria is still prevalent in poorer households, cleaning up clogged and dirty drains (breeding grounds for mosquitoes) -- is literally a life-saving practice.